Just broke down my TZ to move upstairs. Head off playfield out. Put back together. New batteries. Won’t hold memory. Would appreciate any direction. Thank you all!

Aaron

Meter in hand. Battery power getting onto the CPU ?

Battery holder failure happens.

LTG : )

Thanks Lloyd! I’ll investigate further tomorrow. What is JJP waiting on! Hire LTG for his infinite pinball knowledge!

I worked on a TZ where sometimes the memory would hold and sometimes not... turns out the battery holder had some minor corrosion damage on one of the paddles and it made marginal connection with the negative terminal of the center cell. I found the problem by waiting for the memory to fail on boot and measured the DC voltage across the entire battery pack and compared that to the sum of the voltage measured across each of the 3 batteries. It didn't match so I inspected the holder and found the bad paddle.

Thank you! Hope to get it resolved this evening. Or at least discover the problem

Nice Info!

Toilet bowl cleaner on a Q tip will make short work of any green corrosion on Battery terminals, clean with rubbing alcohol after and good to go ✅

I've not found that to be a permanent solution, and this was one of those situations. The PO of the game removed the leaking batteries, cleaned the holder, and installed new batteries but the contacts eventually oxidized and resulted in low voltage output.

The terminal coatings (oxidation preventative) on the battery holder are damaged/removed by the battery goo. You can clean it up but eventually the connection will degrade again.

I took your advice. I had one paddle with acid damage. Cleaned up nicely. Looks new everything else looked rock solid! Thanks guys!

TZ door flasher board interest check: I will create most probably the last batch in 2022-2023.
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/twilight-zone-door-lamp-board-flashers-add-on

I'm interested. Where do I order?

In PM.

Stupid question, but are your batteries in correctly? (I've done it wrong many times..)

ramegoom did you figure this out? mine is doing the same thing and producing the same error message

Got it working waaaay back then. The switch inside the base of the gumball machine was out of adjustment as I recall. I think it was stuck closed.

Worked normally since then.

Thanks for the reply. I just figured out mine as well, the connector for the power to the motor was loose. a little jiggle and everything started working again. Got "Lost in the Zone" on the very next game!

The very first thing I checked! LOL

It’s all good now. Had a little seepage causing a disturbance in the connection. When I changed batteries must have broke some residue loose and would allow the batteries do its job.

Thanks Coyote

My TZ and TAF both have an interesting issue. Both keep the time perfectly, but the date is always off. There are times where I don't turn them on for weeks and the date shows up as the day I last had them on, but the time of day is dead on balls accurate. This makes no sense to me. The batteries are fresh and there is no acid damage on either MPU board. They even maintained the time well when unplugged for 8 hours during transit to and from the GSPF show this year.

Thoughts? Answers?

So the regular door board doesn’t have flashers? This modded board includes 4 built in?

Yes. And it is super cool. Added this from the last run and it is awesome! Especially if you like bright flashy things!

Correct - was intended in original production design, but dropped after prototypes were made. (SOME Samples have the wiring for the top two, but bottom two were removed before Samples were made in factory.)

The door panel flashers are super cool, but I can see why they removed them from the Lock 1 & 2 panels early on. When they flash, especially during powerball, or when the ball is in the pops, kinda throws me off sometimes with how many locked balls I have. Draws attention to the wrong thing.

But the flashers under GUM and BALL are super rad no matter what. Personally, I’d have bought a board that just restores the incandescent flashers there, but alas.

I think it's not distractive, it's just a short pulse, as a part of lightshow, not a steady ON lamp status.
The original design was with 4 flashers, then reduced to 2 flashers, then no flashers at all. Simple cost saving.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/twilight-zone-door-lamp-board-flashers-add-on#post-6188233

The 4 flashers represents the 4 corner of the playfield, and the lightshow it's pretty cool during ramp shots, multiball, Powerball and in more events.

You can deactivate Lock1 and Lock2 flashers. Please contact me in PM for details. If you are not happy with the board, I am willing to buy it back, no problem. Maybe I will create an incandescent version for you. Who knows

I am incredibly happy with the board! I absolutely love it, and I think it’s a must-have mod. I absolutely value your work and dedication to the hobby.

That said, if you do ever decide to make an incandescent version of the board, I will 100% buy it. I keep all of my games incandescent since I prefer the look.

So is this plug-in play or do I have to make another harness. Is it still looks like $120?

It comes with a harness and instructions. It’s really a neat upgrade!

You have one? I already have Pin Stadium's, wonder how that would look. I do like Extra Bling.....I'd be in if it don't break the bank..

How is the pinstadium on TZ?
I have all the CGC remakes and like the RBG effects CGC have incorporated into them.

Richard

Actually set the G.I. to antique yellow whithish...the flashers to blueish...kinda cool. Don't think it was worth the money though. Lesson learned.

I have a set of Pinstadiums I purchased for my TZ but never installed. Instead, I have mini post lights on main and mini PF, trough lighting, and Brite Mod evo lights on the pop bumpers. That and a full LED set and mirror blades and I didn't need the extra lighting any more

Similar tactic on my AFMr. The combination of mini post lights, scoop lights, trough lighting, mirror blades, translucent rubbers and better lit bumper caps and didn't feel the need for pin stadiums anymore

Yeah i bought one about a year ago.

Can’t help ya on the pin stadiums I considered them and ended up adding 5 spot lights and lit star posts that i am very happy with. But, if my memory serves the board harness ties in to the flashers with inline connectors on the new harness. Caution though i’m a little fuzzy.

Nice!
Yes my playfield is already bright enough. Those pop bumper lights sound very cool!

Any other pop bumper lighting kits to consider?

Thanks!
Richard

I've only used the Brite Mods:

https://www.pinballlife.com/britemods-store.html

I have Brite Rings in my TZ, and EVO's in my AFMr and ST:TNG. It is style choice which way you go

The other choice with pop bumpers is whether you want to keep the original bodies, or swap out for different colors/styles. In my ST:TNG and Godzilla, I swapped out for Zitt 's clear bodies, skirt, and bases http://pinball-mods.com/oscom/PopBumper.php?Bally

If there is a lot on the playfield or you want the look of the pop bumper caps floating or you want more light in the pop bumper areas, the clear pop bumper bodies/skirts/bases make a huge difference.

Note that the Brite Mod lighting is VERY easy to install. Swapping out the pop bumper bodies is more involved, usually requiring cutting power lines to the pop bumper and take the assembly apart. Cary Hardy has a great video on rebuilding pop bumpers that shows the process

It’s finally here! Now I remember why this game is always in the top 10. A masterpiece.

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Looks good. I always thought you were a little older.

I’m a kid at heart!

Nice!!!

I picked these up used… i’ll have to dig to see what brand they were. Really like them… leds are color matched to pop color.

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They look sharp! Looks like the Brite mod evo.

Richard

Comet sells “pop bumper rings” which are by color. Check them out. I think I paid 25 bucks for all 3. They are very cool also and super bright!

https://www.cometpinball.com/products/pop-bumper-rings?_pos=1&_sid=f8f9dceeb&_ss=r&variant=12387010510892

One of the things I did when I rebuilt my pop bumpers was replace the skirts to match the caps. Gave it a neat effect, I think.

Replacing the skirts are a pain. I have colored skirts to match but are still sitting in a box.

Yeah. It's a do once and forget about it. I took advantage of having the pop bumpers completely apart anyways.

They are EVO Brite lights. I have them on all my machine's. Love to match the caps to the color of the LEDs and that they have cool white shining down to light up the pop bumper areas which is usually dark.
I purchase them at Pinball Life:
https://www.pinballlife.com/britecaps-evo-pop-bumper-lighting.html

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SORCERER!

I bought them for TZ, and ended up giving them away. If they had WARM whites shining down, then I'd be interested. For my game, the blue of the cool white was too jarring in the area.

Sorry, should have posted mine. I use cool white throughout all my machine's. Just the look I like. It's all a personal choice.

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That looks great! So that’s the Brite mod evo? Red, yellow and orange caps with red, yellow and orange leds?

Thanks!

Richard

Yes, that is correct.

I am getting a gumball geneva switch error on startup. It did not affect gameplay for a long time but now the gumball machine is not working. Are there any step by step instructions for removing the gumball machine? I can see the switch on the underside but it looks like it would be better to access by taking the gumball machine out.